Digital Government
Single Web site key for vets' combined medical, benefits record
Baker, VA's CIO appointee, tells Senate panel that more can be done to support vets, but "the road ahead is unlikely to be incident free."
Digital Government
The Budget: A 'Scintillating' Read
The fine print and programmatic details of President Obama's proposed fiscal 2010 budget runs 1,380 pages in an appendix, with each and every page worth a perusal, OMB director Peter Orszag told a press briefing this morning.
Digital Government
Future Combat Systems Minus Vehicles
As expected, the Obama administration took a budget axe to the Army Future Combat Systems program. It chopped all of the project's eight manned ground vehicles from the program for a savings of $22.9 billion, according to the <a href=http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/TRS/>Terminations, Reductions and Savings section</a> of the proposed fiscal 2010 federal budget released today.
Digital Government
Veterans Affairs seeks 6 percent hike in IT spending for fiscal 2010
Large portion of increase would go to the Veterans Benefits Administration and to fund the development of a new financial management system.
Modernization
Budget boosts spending on Defense communications
Pentagon scales back Future Combat and Tactical Satellite systems.
Digital Government
Missed Buying an Enigma Machine
I like serendipity when it happens -- especially when it concerns something as odd as the current head of the National Security Agency and the German World War II encryption device known as the "<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine>Enigma Machine</a>."
Cybersecurity
NSA director calls for a cyberspace Monroe Doctrine
Proposal could be simplistic "chest beating," or an indication of how serious the United States is about defending its networks.
Digital Government
VA Explains Vonapp Delays (Sort Of)
The Veterans Affairs Department told me on Tuesday that <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090501_2347.php>delays</a> veterans experienced in accessing the <a href=https://vabenefits.vba.va.gov/vonapp/main.asp>Veterans OnLine Application</a> (Vonapp) Web site on May 1 resulted in part from a 10-fold increase in traffic to the site that day, the first day veterans could apply for a benefits under the post-9/11 GI bill.
Digital Government
How's That Front End Tool Workin'?
The Veterans Benefit Administration has a <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090504_1368.php>mess of tech problems</a> on its hands with the near collapse of its <a href=https://vabenefits.vba.va.gov/vonapp/main.asp>Veterans OnLine Application</a> and an inability to handle documents that vets have to attach to their applications.
Digital Government
VA benefits system continues to encounter processing problems
Many vets logging onto Veterans Online Application Web site, launched on May 1, couldn't attach documents required to receive educational benefits.
Digital Government
An 'Open Enough' E-Health Record
Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, said he wants the Military Health System to develop an electronic health record that's "open enough" to exchange data with civilian clinicians who provide care to military personnel and their families under the Defense Department's TRICARE health insurance plan.
Digital Government
Veterans frustrated over inaccessible, slow online benefits system
New site to receive applications to help pay for veterans' education under the new GI bill becomes overloaded on first day.
Digital Government
What Feds Need Masks?
During a Thursday afternoon Web cast on the swine flu with top federal officials from the Health and Human and Services Department, the Homeland Security Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano received an e-mailed question from a Transportation Security Administration worker wondering about the use of face masks.
Digital Government
The Swine Flu Web Talk Show
The Obama administration has deployed all kinds of nifty <a href=http://whatsbrewin.nextgov.com/2009/04/fighting_swine_flu_online.php>Web tools</a> to inform the public about the current outbreak of swine flu - which the Health and Human and Services Department now calls the H1N1 variant of influenza - including a Web cast this afternoon with top federal officials in a format most Americans find comfortable: a talk show.
Digital Government
Defense's 'top doc' and e-record proponent makes his last rounds
Dr. Casscells, assigned the task to improve care at the maligned Walter Reed Army Medical Center, focused on patients and the network that supports them.
Digital Government
Honorary Pest?
On Tuesday night, as I watched more than a squad of high-ranking folks called to the stage for induction into the Military Health Systems Honors Society, which was held during the farewell dinner for S. Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Arlington, I thought someone had made a mistake.
Digital Government
Big-Time Broadband For Afghan
President Obama plans to send <a href=http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0219/p01s01-usfp.html>17,000 more U.S. troops</a> to Afghanistan this year, boosting total U.S. forces in that country to more than 40,000. Other NATO countries, primarily the United Kingdom, have sent about another 20,000 troops.
Digital Government
Fighting Swine Flu Online
The Health and Human Services Department <a href=http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2009pres/04/20090426a.html>declared</a> a public health emergency on Sunday due to a limited outbreak of swine flu in California, Kansas, Ohio, Texas and New York, as well as Canada and New Mexico.
Digital Government
The Soviet Encyclopedia, AHLTA Style
I've been poking around for a couple of weeks on a story that, in 2001, the Naval Medical Center in San Diego had developed a low-cost way to integrate the Defense Department's Composite Health Care System (now called AHLTA, <a href=http://whatsbrewin.nextgov.com/2009/03/ahlta_maybe_not_a_noun.php>maybe not a noun</a>) and the Veterans Affairs Department's electronic health record system, the Veterans Health Information System and Technology Architecture (VistA).
Digital Government